Joshua Simelton

Cam Newton is one of the most physically gifted athletes to ever play quarterback. He's also one of the most inconsistent.

Newton has stretches throughout a season where he goes hot and cold. One game he throws for 300 yards and three touchdowns, the next he's a turnover machine with a below-average passer rating.

New Panthers offensive coordinator Norv Turner is looking to change that part of Newton's game.

“He gets away with that because he makes so many big plays in the running game,” Turner told Alex Marvez and Bill Polian on SiriusXM's "Late Hits." “But the one thing that I think when you look at it that we’re going to work hard to help him is, he has a large number of games where his quarterback rating is as high as anyone’s is. It’s in the high 90s, low 100s.

"But in the middle of that, of a 16-game season, he has four or five games where that rating is not very good. And that, obviously, makes your average not as good as you’d like. So what we’re going to try to work hard for is eliminate the peaks and the valleys and try to, on a weekly basis, make it more consistent. And I think that’ll help us, offensively, be more consistent and certainly will help him.”

Newton, the NFL's Most Valuable Player in 2015, finished with passer ratings of 75.8 and 80.7 the past two seasons since posting a career-high 99.4 passer rating during the Panthers magical run to Super Bowl 50.

Turner knows the Panthers will only go as far as Newton takes them. And in his mind consistency is key.